A Swedish porphyry campana vase circa 1800

Estimate

4,000 - 6,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

49cm. high, 39cm. wide; 1ft. 7¾in., 1ft. 3½in.

with an everted rim, on a waisted socle and square base

Provenance

Probably acquired by Sir William Fowle Middleton, 2nd Bt., for Shrubland Park, Suffolk circa 1830
Thence by descent

Literature

Possibly one of the `Four Egyptian shape massive stone urns on pedestals laid on building-21inches high' recorded in the Inventory, Shrubland Park, 1860 (Vols. 1 & 2), p.8 .
Sotheby's Inventory, Shrubland Park, 1958, p. 105, Entrance Gallery: 60.0.0.

Catalogue Note

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE:
Bukowski's Exhibition Catalogue, Porfyr, December 1985-February 1986, p.31, for a design for a vase of this shape, illustrated in a French exhibition catalogue dated 1805 advertising porphyry from Elfdal in Sweden. Various examples of these vases in Blyberg porphyry are illustrated p. 69, figs. 23, 24, 26.

Alvdalen (Elfdal) in Sweden would appear to have been the only place in Europe where porphyry was mined in any great quantities since Antiquity. In the 1780's, mining commenced and Charles XIV, King of Sweden bought the works and during this period many pieces of porphyry works of art were disseminated throughout Europe as diplomatic gifts.